Catskill Mountaineer Forum is dedicated to discussions about enjoying the outdoors. To keep the forum in a fun manner, we impose the following rules for this forum:

1. No flaming of other users. You may engage in constructive and firm conversations to express your opinion. The line of improper conversations is when you make dehumanizing comments, derogatory statements, and ganging up on other users. It is okay to be emotional, but it is not okay to lose control and make everyone uncomfortable. Everyone is free to express their beliefs without other users trying to oppress them.

Challenging, bullying, trolling is prohibited. Occasionally, a user may post something that appears to be incorrect. If you challenge someones post, it is your burden to prove your case. The accuser is required to prove that they are correct. If you cannot prove your case, your post will be removed. If a challenge is made, you MUST present your case in a professional and gracious manner.

2. No Conversations Involving Politics - You may NOT engage in conversations talking about how you like or hate the political Left or political Right. No "talking head" political conversations. This includes conversations about conservation groups, foundations, environmental groups, etc. You may talk about government issues and laws, such as the DEP and DEC in the Government Forum.

3. No Advertisements - You may not post any comments or links that has the appearance of selling a product. This includes commercial and non-commercial. You may put in links to products that are requested by a posting user. For example, if some one is interested in a recommendation for boots, you may post links to Asolo, Scarpa, etc. No Advertising rule also applies to your Avatar and profile sections of your account. Also prohibited are links and/or post include fund raising, charities, specialty events. If you want an event listed on the site, please PM the moderator, or Email from the front page.

4. No Malicious Posting - You may not post information that you know is incorrect, or believe is incorrect to harm another user, individual, or entity. We want all information posted to be as correct as possible. Sometimes it is impossible to know all the details, so let the users know if the information is speculative, or you believe that the information is correct. Sometimes outside individuals can get quite upset when incorrect information is posted. Try to be considerate.

5. No Religious Posting - Religion is a personal issue, so keep your religious views to yourself. No "God Bless You" comments. No links to religious sites. No discussion of human abortion.

6. No Sexual Posting - Sadly many sex sites just love to interject links to their web site. Additionally, children do come to this site, so try to keep your comments appropriate for all users. You may say someone is "cute" or other flirtatious comments as long as they are not considered as stalking or you make someone uncomfortable.

7. General Information - You are free to post as often as you like, so long as the posting is constructive to the post.

8. Laws - You may not make any postings that violate any civil or criminal Federal or State laws. This includes defamation, harassment, physical violence, threats to others, etc. You may talk about laws you broke at your own peril.

As a general rule, we want everyone to have fun and enjoy their visit here. We also want any post to be constructive and educational. We are flexible on some bending of the rules. If you are in doubt you can leave a note in the posting or you can contact a moderator. The moderator is free to change the rules on a post-by-post basis as needs apply.

========================================================================================== HOW TO SET UP YOUR PROFILE==========================================================================================Avatars: You can upload any image between 20x20 pixels and 90x90 pixels. The image must be smaller then 6,144 bytes. Here are some pre-built avatars you can use if you do not want to create your own. To download the image, just right click your mouse, and select "Save Image". Select the directory you would like to store it in. Then in your profile (avatar) just click on "Browse" to find the image on your computer.